Something we reported earlier in the week had us stumped, and that was the fact people were thinking that 5G and the Coronavirus pandemic were somehow linked. This led to people in the UK vandalising telecommunication masts, celebrities affirming the conspiracy, and just wide-spread disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. We may never know who truly started the conspiracy, but we do know who’s been the one spreading the lie.
According to research from the Cornell Alliance for Science, “the 5G theory first gained prominence thanks largely to the worldwide anti-vaccination movement, which took up conspiratorial messaging originally spread by the Kremlin.”
So yeah, the most unlikely of alliances; Russia and Anti-Vaxxers.
Anti-Vaxxers, Why Am I Not Surprised?
First let me just start off by saying Anti-Vaxxers are the worst and it’s no surprise they’re behind this new spread of disinformation. One of the ways is by the epicenter of the anti-vaccination movement in the United States, the Children’s Health Defense (CHD). The group is fronted by environmental lawyer, who is now solely against vaccinations, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He’s been fear mongering about autism, MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) as well as the flu vaccine.
This organisation, CHD has now turned their attentions to spreading misinformation about 5G and electromagnetic radiation.
From February 3, CHD has launched a legal petition against the US Federal Communications Commission, and warned about “harmful radiation” released from the deployment of 5G.
They then proceeded to follow that up with numerous false posts about 5G, including spreading the rumour that the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown was in fact a cover to install 5G masts on schools. They also published an article that suggests the pandemic was a cover for an evil “global agenda” and that they were trying to make us “subjects of a techno-communist global government”.
Yeah, it’s as bat sh*t crazy as it sounds.
There have been other anti-vaxxer sites and groups that have been spreading misinformation about 5G and the coronavirus as well. Natural News, another ‘alternative health site’ (there’s no such thing) has been spreading the myth that Covid-19 was actually created in a Wuhan bio-warfare lab, and that 5G has been spreading it by somehow causing oxygen deprivation in your blood. Which, is one of the things multiple celebrities have been posting about on social media about 5G and Covid-19.
Mother Russia Strikes Back
Now how did the Russians get mixed up in all this? Well Russia is no stranger to promoting misinformation with the goal of undermining trust in science and Western institutions.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin’s propaganda channels RT and Sputnik are news-style broadcasts that gives legitimacy to conspiracy theories by airing them to their audience, with the added advantage of looking legit. Spanning from January 2019, RT has been airing segments on 5G where their ‘correspondent’ Michele Greenstein warned that 5G “might kill you”.
There have been other RT segments which propagate conspiracies, and more recently conspiracy theorist David Icke has taken these ‘theories’ with millions of view on YouTube. Well, now he’s banned as YouTube is looking through misinformation regarding the coronavirus, but not before he could publish various claims linking 5G and the coronavirus pandemic.
One of these claims is that the Covid-19 vaccine would be an instrument to inset nanotechnology chips to track, and control people.
Another piece of evidence of Russia tampering with information is based on a EU-funded project EUvsDisinfo. There, they compile various claims about the coronavirus from Russia, and say that they’ve been “throwing coronavirus disinformation at the wall to see what sticks.” They’ve chronicled 39 Russian-sponsored claims that the US created Covid-19, and 17 claims that the virus was a secret plan of the global elite.
The unfortunate, simple truth is there’s no way to to tell how far this disinformation has been spread. These theories could have an adverse affect, where people are listening and believing these bogus ‘theories’ to be true. We’ve already seen instances of that happen, when U.S. President Donald Trump promoted the use of Hydroxychloroquine to cure the Coronavirus. That led to a man dying, after listening to their President.
These false claims, and unsubstantiated evidence or conspiracies indeed are deadly. Whether it be to poison your mind, or your actual well-being. All we can really do is question things that you read online, and not to believe words written, just because they were written. The spread of disinformation, in the long run, could be potentially worse that just the Coronavirus epidemic as we are witnessing now. But hopefully, people smarten up, and not simply believe everything they read without questioning it.
